"Haven't a clue."
"Doesn't he have an address?"
"Bound to."
"Mobile?"
"Always binning them. It's a credit scam. He's always after a new model. He can't stand purple. Fuck knows."
"So what happened?"
"The van was parked round the back of the Keppel's Head. We're driving back through Portsea, middle of the fucking night, and we see this mush hanging out of a Cavalier. At first I think he's pissed. Then we get close, right alongside like, and shit you should have seen the state of him."
"Pre-damaged?"
"What?"
"Forget it. You stopped?"
"Of course we did. The bloke was spark out, blood all over his face, his T-shirt, everywhere, right beating. Then he comes round, moaning and groaning, and he must have thought it was us that did the damage because he starts thrashing around like you wouldn't believe."
"You're kidding…" Winter shook his head. "You do the damage?"
"Exactly. Anyway, me and Steve do our best to clean him up, then we ask where he'd like us to take him."
"Home would have been a good answer."
"Yeah, but he doesn't say that, does he? He wants to go to the railway station. He's had enough of Pompey. He wants to get the fuck out."
"The station's shut."
"That's what we told him. Made no difference. There he is, bleeding all over us, and all he can talk about is the fucking timetable."
Talbot rubbed his face, then yawned again. "In the end, we did what he wanted, took him to the station. Closest we could get was the ticket barrier. Never even said thank you."
"And the handcuffs?"
"What handcuffs?"
"You're telling me you didn't handcuff him to the barrier?"
"No fucking way. Why would I do a thing like that?"
Winter knew there was no point pursuing the charge. While he had absolutely no doubt that handcuffs were part of the tableau, the camera angle had masked the detail.
"What about the wraps?"
"Wraps?"
"We found half a dozen wraps in the Cavalier. Smack." Winter took a sip of coffee. "Didn't plant them yourself, did you? Only that would have been a kindness."
"Who to?"
"Us. We want these guys out of the city as much as you do."
"Really?" Talbot's interest was at last engaged. "Shame you haven't nicked them, then. You try fucking hard enough with the rest of us."
"Is that right?" Winter sounded positively hurt. "You're sitting here on half a million quid's worth and you're telling me we've spoiled your party?"
"Not yet. But you'd like to."
"How does that work, then? Are we talking busts here? Street level?
Half a dozen scrotes with a gram or two between them? That kind of aggro Bazza wouldn't even notice."
"You know what I'm talking about."
"I do?" Winter looked mystified. "Help me out at all, Jimmy?"
Suttle shook his head. He was making notes in his pocketbook. Later, when Winter had finished, he'd take a formal statement.
Winter was brooding over this latest bend in the conversational road.
He'd heard rumours about some covert operation being mounted against a major player in the city but he'd always put all this down to propaganda from the guys at headquarters who had worries about force morale. If no one had ever managed to lay a finger on Bazza Mackenzie, then it would be nice to pretend that someone was at least trying. But maybe, for once, the rumours were true.
"Tell me more' he said at length 'then we might leave you alone."
"You have to be joking. That's me done."
"Worried about Bazza? Speaking out of turn?"
"Fuck off."
"My pleasure." Winter held his gaze for a moment, then produced a card from his wallet. "When's the great man back?"
"Baz? Late this afternoon."
"Good." Winter slipped the card onto the desk. "My mobile's on there.
Tell him to bell me if he fancies it. Tonight would be good. The telly's awful."
It took less than ten minutes for Faraday to turn the Tumbril meeting into a head-to-head with Willard. Brian Imber had reported back from his visit to Mackenzie's bank. Bazza, he announced with a frown, had ordered the sale of a penthouse flat in Gunwharf. The property, on a prime harbour side site, was on the market at 695,000. "There has to be a reason," Imber puzzled. "Has to be." Faraday wanted to help out but knew he couldn't. In all probability, Mackenzie was raising cash against the purchase of Spit Bank Fort, proof positive that he'd taken Nick Hayder's carefully laid bait, but a single glance at Willard produced a tiny shake of the head. Any mention of Graham Wallace or the fort was still off-limits in front of Brian Imber. Strictly need to know. At least for now.
Willard steered the meeting onto safer ground. He wanted to know the status of Prebble's input, how far the accountant had got, how soon Willard could expect a totally reliable statement of the assets under Mackenzie's control. Faraday knew this information was important. The moment they managed to tie Mackenzie to a specific criminal offence proven in a court of law was the moment the confiscation process kicked in. From that point on, it would be down to Mackenzie to justify his legal ownership of every one of those assets, a challenge — in Prebble's view that would be beyond him. In this sense, as Imber kept reminding him, Tumbril had turned the investigative process on its head. First Prebble calculated how much they could nick back off the man. Then they looked for a specific charge that would stand up in court.
The latter, as far as Faraday could fathom, was the real problem.
Trapping a criminal as well protected as Mackenzie was a near-impossibility, and only a detective as driven and original as Nick Hayder would even be minded to try. In the shape of Spit Bank Fort he'd come up with a big fat plum that Mackenzie just might be tempted to scrump but in Faraday's view the odds against a successful sting were stilll high, not least because Tumbril despite Hayder's best efforts was itself far from secure.
An incoming phone call drew Willard to his desk. When he returned to the conference table, Faraday brought up the pre-Christmas intercept.
Mike Valentine's Mercedes had been stopped and searched en route back from London. The plan had been hatched and overseen by the Tumbril team, albeit with substantial input from other units. There was overwhelming evidence that the Mercedes was carrying substantial quantities of cocaine. Yet the full search found nothing.
"And your point is…?" Willard sounded testy. This was old ground.
"My point is someone leaked. Told Valentine. Told Mackenzie. Maybe not directly. Maybe it went through different hands. But either way it got there in the end. Hence the fact we drew a blank."
"We know that. And it's been addressed."
"How?"
It was a direct challenge. Willard, to his obvious irritation, couldn't duck it.
"Listen, Joe. We've always known from the start that Tumbril was basically an audit operation. It's paper-based, figures-based. That's how far the budget stretches and even then, believe me, we've barely got enough. The moment we want to spread our wings, mount an operation, scoop someone up, we have to widen the circle, bring in the specialists covert, surveillance, whatever. There's no way, short of the Good Fairy, we can do anything else."
"Of course." Faraday nodded. "But has anyone asked the hard questions about the intercept? Drawn up a list of names? People who knew?
People who might have' he shrugged 'leaked?"
"I did." It was Imber.
"And?"
"How long is a piece of string? We needed Special Ops for the covert.
That's a couple of blokes, minimum. Surveillance? Maybe half a dozen more. Say ten in all. It's maths, Joe. Each of these guys has mates.
Each of those mates has more mates. Suddenly you're into half the force. The miracle is, we're still reasonably watertight, at least as far as the paperwork is concerned." He paused. "Did you know about Whale Island?"
"No
."
"Well, then…"
Faraday accepted the point with a curt nod. He was still curious to explore exactly what had happened back before Christmas but at least he now understood Willard's determination to keep Wallace and the u/c operation under wraps. Quite how Imber would react when he discovered he'd been out of the loop was anyone's guess but that, he told himself, would be Willard's problem.
"You want to answer that?" Willard drew Faraday's attention to his mobile. Faraday glanced at the number. Cathy Lamb.
"Do you mind, sir?"
"Go ahead."
Faraday stood up and retreated to the far end of the office. Behind him, Imber was still pressing Willard about the Gunwharf flat. Faraday paused beside the window, gazing out through a gap in the Venetian blinds. From the tone of Cathy's voice, he knew at once that it was bad news. J-J, she said, had been arrested at a petrol station in North End. Word that he was wanted had been out for several hours but he'd fallen into their laps after a call from the forecourt manager.
J-J had been acting suspiciously beside one of the pumps. He'd filled an empty two-litre bottle with unleaded and appeared to have no intention of paying. Control had dispatched an area car less than a minute away and after a brief chase J-J had been detained.
Faraday closed his eyes.
"Chase?"
"He legged it, Joe. And I understand there was a bit of a fracas."
"Is he OK?"
"Upset. I've talked to the Custody Sergeant at Central and he's aware of the situation. We've taken the case over from division because of the Scouse involvement but Highland Road have volunteered Rick Stapleton and Alan Moffat to handle the interview. I understand from Winter that you pretty much know the circumstances. Daniel Kelly? The student who died last night?"
Faraday was following a flock of racing pigeons as they wheeled over the nearby rooftops. Head north, he thought, and leave all this chaos behind you.
He bent to the phone.
"What's the charge?"
"There isn't one. Not yet. We're waiting on interview."
"What about someone who knows sign?"
"The Custody Sergeant's phoning through the names on the qualified interpreter register. So far, he's drawn a blank." She paused. "It may have to be you, Joe. We can't wait forever."
"Great." Faraday glanced at his watch, realising there was no point prolonging the conversation. Like it or not, Willard had to know. He thanked Cathy for the call and returned to the table. Willard knew at once that something had happened.
"OK?"
"Afraid not, sir." Faraday offered him a bleak smile. "Know a good solicitor?"
Within the hour, Faraday was ringing the entry phone at Central police station. A uniformed PC let him in and the duty Inspector emerged from an office up the corridor. From deep in the building came the rattle of bars and a yell from someone desperate for a fag. To Faraday's relief, it didn't sound the least like J-J.
"Your boy's in the cells. I'm afraid he's still cuffed."
"Is that necessary?"
"I'm afraid so. He's been' the Inspector was choosing his words carefully 'less than helpful."
Faraday nodded. He wanted to know whether Hartley Crewdson had arrived. For the time being, J-J could wait.
"We've put him in one of the interview rooms. You want tea or anything?"
"No, thanks."
Faraday followed the Inspector to the suite of interview rooms. Hartley Crewdson was a solicitor with a successful criminal practice in the north of the city. He specialised in defence work, representing a never-ending stream of young tearaways from the Paulsgrove and Leigh Park estates. Faraday had never had personal dealings with him before but was aware of the man's reputation. Half the DCs in the city thought Crewdson was a menace. The rest viewed him as a genius, the brief who could spot the weakness in any prosecution case. If you found yourself in a really tight corner, they said, then Crewdson's was the number you called.
The Inspector knocked lightly on the door before going in. Crewdson was sitting at the interview table, leafing through a thick file. His taste in suits and ties was never less than flamboyant, and for a man in his late forties, he'd won a big following amongst the more impressionable female clerks at the magistrates court.
"Leave you to it?" The Inspector nodded at Faraday and left, closing the door behind him.
Crewdson got to his feet. Faraday accepted the proffered handshake, curious to know why Crewdson had phoned him with the offer to represent J-J.
"Paul Winter gave me a ring," he said briefly. "He thought you might need a bit of support."
Faraday permitted himself a thin smile.
"Winter's right. You'll not have spoken to the lad?"
"Hardly. I was waiting for you to arrive."
"But you've talked to the Custody Officer?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"It's not as bad as you might think."
"Really?"
Faraday shed his jacket and sank into one of the four chairs. According to Crewdson, the evidence against J-J was at best thin. Winter and Suttle had photographed him arriving at Pennington Road. There was no evidence he'd left in possession of drugs. Neither had they seen money change hands. Eadie Sykes had volunteered a statement establishing that no drugs had been present in the student's flat, and in the shape of the videotapes, she appeared to have behavioural evidence to prove it. According to Sykes, the drugs had been dropped off early in the evening. She herself had taped the fixing sequence and everything else that followed. In terms of supply, J-J was therefore home free.
"What about the business with the petrol?"
"That's a mystery. No one knows."
"OK?" Faraday sat back. "So what do we do now?"
"I suggest he goes no-cpmment."
"Why?"
"Because that way we leave nothing to chance. The last thing we need is your boy saying anything' he smiled 'silly. The lad's going to be upset, bound to be. We can use that later, if they try and make anything of the no-comment."
"In court, you mean?"
"Yes."
"You think it'll come to that?"
"No. Not if we're sensible."
Faraday sat back a moment, trying to order his thoughts. The thrust of Crewdson's defence was obvious. J-J was about to become yet another stroppy, tight-lipped interviewee.
"That means it's down to us to make the case," he said at last.
"Exactly." Crewdson was smiling again. "But it's them, Mr. Faraday.
Not us."
Minutes later, the interview strategy agreed, Faraday went to find the Custody Sergeant. To his relief, it was someone he knew. The two men masked their mutual unease with a brisk exchange of nods. When Faraday enquired about someone to sit alongside J-J during the interview, the Custody Sergeant confirmed he'd drawn a blank on the two registered interpreters within the county.
"One's on holiday in Egypt. The other isn't answering her mobile."
"You've tried out of area? West Sussex? Surrey? Dorset?"
"To be honest, no, sir. I know the ACPO guidelines favour sticking to the register but we're up against the PACE clock. The lad needs communication support, no question, but…"
The Sergeant spread his hands. There was a brief silence, broken by Faraday.
"You're asking me to do it?"
"I'm asking whether you'd mind, sir."
"You think it's appropriate?"
"I think we ought to move things along."
"Good idea." Faraday eyed him for a moment. "Do you mind if I see him before we start?"
"Of course not."
The Custody Sergeant lifted a phone and summoned one of the jailers. A burly woman in a white blouse appeared moments later, and led Faraday down through the station to the cell complex at the end. Faraday had made this journey countless times before as a probationer, as a young CID aide, as a serving DC yet never had it occurred to him that he would, one day, be on the receiving end of all this watchful attention.
<
br /> The bleakness of the place had never hit him quite this way before: the harsh neon lights, the institutional greens and whites, the way that the jangle of a bunch of keys echoed around corner after corner.
J-J was in a cell towards the end of the corridor. A concrete plinth beneath the window served as a bunk, and through the hatch in the grey steel door Faraday could see his son stretched full length on the thin sponge mattress. His eyes were closed and his bony wrists lay handcuffed on the rumpled bottom of his T-shirt. Faraday had never seen anyone looking so solitary, so cut off, so alone. Already, in the stir of air as the jailer unlocked and opened the door, he could smell the harsh tang of petrol.
J-J, hearing nothing, didn't move. Faraday glanced back at the jailer.
"Mr. Crewdson?"
The woman nodded and left. Faraday heard the key turn in the heavy door before she set off down the corridor. He reached out and touched J-J's face with the back of his hand. The boy's eyes opened, staring up at him, the way he might greet a total stranger. Faraday tried to coax a smile. When nothing happened, he turned his attention to J-J's wrists. The handcuffs were double locked, and the skin was raw and inflamed where the steel edges of the cuffs had chafed. J-J struggled upright on the mattress, holding his wrists in front of him the way you might carry a precious object.
"They hurt?" Faraday signed.
J-J shook his head. His face was pale and he wouldn't meet his father's gaze. When Faraday gave him a hug, he could feel a tremor running through his thin frame.
"What happened?"
Approaching footsteps paused outside the cell. A key turned in the lock and Faraday glanced back to find Hartley Crewdson stepping into the cell. The jailer was preparing to lock them in again.
"We need these cuffs off," Faraday told her. "He'll be fine now."
"I'll talk to the Custody Sergeant."
"You do that."
Crewdson, a tall man, was looking down at J-J. He must have been in this situation a thousand times, Faraday thought. Another youth colliding head-on with the judicial system. Another plea before the magistrates.
Faraday did the introductions. J-J offered the faintest of nods but his father was unsure whether he really understood what was about to happen.
"You're going to be interviewed," he explained. "Two policemen, two detectives. They'll be asking you what happened. All you need tell them is your name and date of birth. Everything else…" He glanced at Crewdson for support. "Just shake your head."
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